Cover Feature: By Daniel J. Linss another hay hauler and bought a “plastic” 3-axle Freightliner truck and began hauling chicken feed. A few years later, in 2007, he gave up being an owner operator and went to work at a friend’s construction company, pulling a lowbed and driving a transfer, until he quit trucking altogether and took a job in Sonoma County’s Mosquito Abatement Program. Needless to say, Jim was devastated – but that didn’t stop him. While still in high school, Jim got a job at Rivertown Feed in Petaluma when he was 16 years old. Loading products into customers’ vehicles and making deliveries, Jim really liked this job. After he graduated high school at 18 years old, he began working full-time at the feed store. Later that year, he got his CDL permit and started going out with anyone who would take him trucking. Our friend and past cover trucker (August 2017) Kevin Scarpete was hauling beef cows every Tuesday from Nevada to a plant in Petaluma, and it just so happened that Jim’s days off at the feed store were Tuesday and Wednesday. Going out with Kevin, Jim would do some of the driving, and learned a lot about loading, unloading, and hauling cattle. After quitting the feed store in the spring of 2011, Jim began running a squeeze and going out with various hay haulers, including his dad, who had briefly returned to hauling hay before starting the county job. Getting his CDL in November 2011, Jim wanted to buy his own truck and get his own thing going, but getting insurance at his age, with his lack of experience, proved to be a challenge. Getting a driving job from Charlie Cunningham of Cunningham Bros. in Petaluma, running a 2-axle Peterbilt 362 cabover, Jim started pulling double bottom hoppers, hauling grain. In July of 2012, Jim started driving for Morrison Hay out of Santa Rosa, CA, hauling hay with a really nice Peterbilt 362 hay truck and trailer. When the season ended, along with his gig at Morrison Hay, Jim started hanging out at Hay fever is an allergic reaction that occurs when your body’s immune system overreacts to allergens such as pollen, dust mites, mold, or animal dander. Effective management includes avoiding allergens, using antihistamines, and immunotherapy – or, in Jim Beck’s case, driving old Freightliner cabover hay trucks and trailers! Applying this strategy to most of the trucks he’s owned and operated, hauling hay and cattle like so many have done before him, nothing has cured this condition – in fact, it may be getting worse. And after his home state of California banned this remedy altogether, Jim (and others) had to find a legal way to keep this treatment for “hay fever” available and in play. Now from Williams, CA, Jim Beck (34) grew up in Sonoma County, in and around Petaluma, which is about an hour north of San Francisco in Northern California. Jim’s grandparents, along with his father when he was just a baby, moved to Bloomfield (just west of Petaluma) in 1962. Jim’s grandfather Leon worked in the shipyards and then later joined the sheet metal union, where he eventually retired from. On his mom’s side, Jim’s grandpa Ted, who also lived in Sonoma County, started hauling milk in cans at the age of 14 from the many diaries in the area. He later started a trucking business and hauled hay, but went on to be a heavy equipment operator, which is the business he retired from. Growing up in Bloomfield, Jim’s dad David became a lumper, elevating hay into barns with a conveyor, and unloading hay trucks by hand. Later, he got his commercial driver’s license and began trucking. At age 28, he bought his first truck in 1990 – a white 1973 Freightliner cabover hay truck and trailer with a red stripe – and started Hay Fever Trucking. David drove this truck until 1996 when he bought and built “Blue” – a blue 1985 Freightliner cabover truck and trailer. Jim was born in 1992 and spent a lot of time in “Blue” while growing up and trucking with his dad. Driving a hay truck was pretty much all Jim ever wanted to do – his grandmother still has a picture Jim drew in first grade that said he wanted to be a hay hauler and a racecar driver when he grew up – and he ended up doing both of these things. Hauling hay throughout Central California to dairies and beef ranches, Jim went out with his dad whenever possible. “Blue” had a 75” cab and was powered by a Big Cam 4 Cummins, hooked to a 13-speed, and was originally a lumber truck that Jim’s dad modified and built into a hay truck and trailer. Around 2004, when Jim was 12 years old, his dad sold “Blue” to 10 10-4 Magazine / October 2026 HAY FEVER
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